Saga Cavallin: The Met Gala Never Happened

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#Saga #Cavallin #Met #Gala #Happened

At 00.00 last night, Swedish time, the Met Gala did not take place. It may sound strange considering the grotesque amount of images and videos from the charity event’s red carpet that are now being pumped out over the internet. But precisely because of that. The Met Gala is the ultimate pseudo-event, tailor-made for the screen era, symbolically sponsored by luxury fashion conglomerate LVMH and Tiktok.

The red (green?) carpet at the Metropolitan Museum in New York on the first Monday of May every year is the stage for a drama whose sole purpose is to be relayed via Instagram posts and tiktok clips. The Met Gala happens nowhere more than in your phone. Since the event serves no purpose other than exposure for those invited, its importance has grown exponentially over the past decade, in tandem with the influencer’s takeover of the cultural landscape. Those people who seem to live on social media are seen irl and fool the algorithm. Ready, ready to go, best outfit picture wins.

So who won?

John Galliano, the Gothic, JG Ballard. In that scheme.

Rumor has it that Anna Wintour and Met Costume Institute chief curator Andrew Bolton actually intended the 2024 exhibition to be a John Galliano retrospective. The designer who has been in charge of Margiela for several years, where he did a much-lauded show earlier this year. However, Galliano’s cancellation in 2011 as a result of a drunken anti-Semitic tirade reportedly led to internal criticism that put a damper on those plans.

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Emma Chamberlain. Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP

But Galliano was still visible everywhere on the discount-like entrance carpet – apart from Kim Kardashian, three of the gala’s co-hosts wore clothes from Margiela. Including Zendaya, whose attention-grabbing twist recreated a look Galliano did for Dior in 1999. The sad thing about Zendaya is that her profoundly unexciting radiance means she can’t pull off even the most elaborate, beautiful clothes her personal stylist Law Roach pulls from the archives .

The exhibition whose opening the gala celebrates is therefore entitled “Sleeping beauties: reawakening fashion”. There, fragile garments from the Metropolitan’s collections are displayed, which in a somewhat unclear way are part of an exploration of nature’s cyclical… nature. The actual dress code for the gala was “The Garden of Time”, named after a short story by JG Ballard. This theme was chosen by the guests (or their team of stylists and sponsoring fashion houses, rather) to interpret literally in three different equally literal ways.

Image 1 of 2 Photo: John Angelillo/TT Image 2 of 2 Photo: Stephen Lovekin/BEI/Shutterstock

Either they dressed up for, straight up, time. Tyla was an hourglass, Sabrina Harrison a clock. Best in this genre was Serena Williams, channeling ’80s Debbie Mazar in a gold lamé dress with Balenciaga train, black gloves and gold watch.

Alternatively, a garden. Almost everyone chose the garden, in settings about as exciting as a central spread about perennials in “Beautiful Home”.

The third selectable option appeared to be Goth. Dark lips, smoky eyes, muted tulle were the watchwords for including, but not limited to, guests of honor Gwendoline Christie as well as Zendaya and Emma Chamberlain. Lana Del Rey, for her part, looked as if she had fallen victim to spin moths in Alexander McQueen. Many black capers were noticed in the swarm.

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Image 1 of 2 Gwendoline Christie. Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP Image 2 of 2 Lana Del Rey. Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP

But now the dress code for the festivities wasn’t something written by Edgar Allan Poe. JG Ballard, whose tech-dystopian writing appears more in step with the times with each passing year (in an essay published in Vogue in the 1970s he even predicted social media), thus got the last word. Ballard’s short story is not at all about decay and organic impermanence, but is an allegory for the victory of the masses over the lost and decadent bourgeoisie. The irony seems to have been lost on just about everyone involved. But he who screams last laughs best.